InCRIS
Integrated Climate Risk Management (InCRIS)
Building resilience to extreme heat in India
Extreme heat is one of the fastest-growing climate risks in India. It affects health, livelihoods, productivity, water security, and infrastructure, particularly for people who work outdoors, live in heat-prone settlements, or depend on agriculture for their income, specifically focused on gig workers, construction workers, informal settlements, frontline workers, and smallholder farmers, especially women farmers.
The Integrated Climate Risk Management (InCRIS) project is helping communities and institutions better prepare for and manage these risks. Jointly implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, with ADRA India serving as the national implementation support partner, the project is being implemented in Delhi-NCR and Amravati, Maharashtra.
Over 20 months, the project will strengthen heat risk governance, expand access to climate risk finance, pilot community-led adaptation solutions, conduct behaviour change campaigns and generate evidence that can support heat resilience efforts across India.
What We Are Doing
Strengthening Heat Risk Governance
Effective heat action requires more than emergency response. The project works with government institutions at national, state, and local levels to strengthen planning, coordination, and decision-making around heat risk.
This includes developing policy recommendations, supporting capacity building for government officials, and improving how heat risks are integrated into climate adaptation and disaster risk management systems.
Supporting Better Decisions with Data
The project will introduce a Digital Support Tool that helps government agencies identify areas and populations most vulnerable to extreme heat.
Using climate, social, and vulnerability data, the tool will support risk mapping, preparedness planning, resource allocation, and early action before heat impacts escalate. The tool will also serve as a knowledge hub/ portal for government officials and other partners to access information on heat risk management.
Expanding Climate Risk Finance
Many vulnerable households have limited financial protection against heat-related income loss, health emergencies, or crop damage.
The project will design and test practical financial solutions for groups most affected by heat, including informal workers, gig workers, construction workers, and women farmers. These solutions may include emergency savings groups, micro-insurance, financial literacy support, and improved access to existing government schemes.
Piloting Community-Based Solutions
The project will work directly with communities to test locally relevant adaptation measures that reduce exposure to extreme heat. The following are the three pilots that the project is working on:
- Heat-Ready School Model (Delhi-NCR). Demonstrate a public school that stays safe through extreme heat and can be copied across the city’s school network, pairing structural cooling (cool roofs, window shading, cross-ventilation, drinking-water points) with daily heat-safety routines for students and staff, in line with NDMA’s guidance on institutional heat preparedness.
- Rural Cooling Corridor and Rest Stops (Amravati). Build a shaded, climate-responsive corridor with cool resting points between the primary health centre and the bus stand, so farmers and frontline health workers can travel and wait safely through the peak heat hours, consistent with NDMA’s community-based heat action guidance.
- Cool-Rest Points for Outdoor Workers (Delhi-NCR). Create shaded, water-equipped rest stops where gig and outdoor workers gather, giving the city’s most heat-exposed earners a place to recover during the hottest part of the day, in line with the Delhi Heat Action Plan.
Lessons from these pilots will help identify approaches that can be replicated and scaled in other heat-vulnerable regions.
Building Awareness and Preparedness
Extreme heat is not only a climate challenge; it is also a public awareness challenge. Many people most at risk do not receive timely information on how to protect themselves, recognise warning signs, or access support during heatwave conditions.
The project works with frontline workers, gig workers, community volunteers, women’s groups, and local leaders to build awareness and preparedness through practical training and outreach. Information on heat safety, hydration, first aid, early warning messages, and protective measures will be shared through IEC material, community meetings, workshops, street plays, awareness campaigns, social media content, and heat-safety jingles.
By making heat information simple, accessible, and locally relevant, the project aims to help communities take action before heat becomes a health emergency.
Where We Work
Delhi-NCR
One of India’s most heat-exposed urban regions, where extreme temperatures affect informal workers, low-income communities, and overstretched public services.
Amravati, Maharashtra
An agricultural district where rising temperatures increasingly affect farming systems, livelihoods, water access, and the wellbeing of women and farming households.
The selection of Delhi-NCR and Amravati reflects a strategic effort to address heat vulnerability across two of India’s most climate-sensitive and socio-economically diverse landscapes. Delhi-NCR represents a rapidly urbanizing environment where construction workers, gig workers, and informal settlement residents face severe heat exposure, while Amravati represents an agrarian landscape where farmers, especially women farmers, experience increasing climate and livelihood risks. Together, these geographies provide an opportunity to develop, test, and scale integrated heatwave management solutions that are relevant across urban and rural India.
Expected Impact
The project aims to support the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) towards alleviation of heatwave-related impacts in the comprehensive risk management framework at the national and sub-national level by way of policy and actionable strategies. Following a holistic approach, the efforts are accompanied by measures to raise awareness and build capacity of stakeholders in managing the runaway effects of heatwaves.
- Fostering national and international exchange and dialogues on innovative approaches to combat the impacts of climate change-related heatwaves.
- Enhancing and strengthening the capacities of authorities at the national and sub-national levels and institutions for the technical application of innovative financial tools for addressing heatwave impacts.
- Incorporating gender-sensitive approaches into risk reduction frameworks, ensuring equitable participation and addressing the specific vulnerabilities of women and marginalised groups in heatwave mitigation and adaptation strategies.
- Piloting community-based climate adaptation measures and compiling traditional knowledge and best practices for reducing heat-related risks of vulnerable populations, in collaboration with technical partners such as CDRI.
Partners
Integrated Climate Risk Management in India (InCRIS) is an Indo-German bilateral project jointly implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, with ADRA India serving as the national implementation support partner. The initiative focuses on strengthening the technical and institutional capacities of state and national-level actors with respect to heatwave management in India.